Theory of Heterogeneous Materials

Heterogeneous materials appear in nature (polycristals, wood, bone, blood), physical systems ( (un)stable colloidal suspensions) or in engineering applications (fiber-reinforced materials, reinforced rubber in tires). They usually exhibit remarkable physical properties superior to the properties of individual components. Despite being comprised at the microscopic length scale of multiple domains with different physical properties, these materials behave as homogeneous materials and can be assigned macroscopic (effective) physical material-like properties for practical purposes. The course will cover classical and recent analytical, numerical methods for computation of various physical properties (viscous/thermal/dielectric, viscoelastic, thermoelastic, piezoelectric, electrostrictive) of heterogeneous materials that exhibit (non)linear and/or coupled behaviors.